


As Above, So Below

by fatallyserious



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel/Demon Hybrids, Demonic Possession, F/M, Los Angeles, angel intuition, castiel pretends hes a priest, demon intuition, demon nuns, nun on the run, sam isnt a bitch, stuck in a crappy motel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-07-08 13:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19870696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatallyserious/pseuds/fatallyserious
Summary: "No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell." - Carl JungThings begin to unravel when Arella, a pious young novitiate, is driven from her convent by demons. Coming across the Winchester brothers is a stroke of good luck, but the mysterious words of their friend Castiel leave Arella questioning whether the life she's been living is really hers at all. As she learns more about Sam, Dean and their mysterious "Anglican" friend, the young nun begins to grow suspicious of those around her - and of herself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thing happened. I found all my old cringey SN FF from YEARRRS back, decided to clean it up and post it.  
> This is set somewhere early Season 6ish I think.  
> Dean's still getting over his lady, Sam's still got his soul, Castiel's still manning the civil war.
> 
> Important things to note:  
> This fic is predominantly Cass/OFC.  
> Sorry about certain religious inaccuracies. I used to be Catholic, but hell if I can remember what we were meant to be doing.  
> Sorry if stuff just doesn't add up. I was like...15 when I wrote the first versions of this and none of the other seasons had even come out at that time. We were fresh on season 6!  
> Enjoy!

As iridescent and shimmering as well-polished moonstone, so is the San Gabriel River as it runs through the nightscape of Los Angeles. A barrage of unrelenting rain, considered somewhat Biblical in amounts to some, caused the usually small and docile body of water to swell greatly, daring to burst its banks as it struggled to contain the heavy rain.

The weather is certainly out of the ordinary, given its ferocious nature and sudden onslaught. It is particularly volatile– calm one minute and thunderclap the next. Not a single one of the city’s ten major weather stations had foreseen the sky’s swift change.

Naturally, the peculiarity of the weathers quick onset had caught the attention of the Winchester brothers. The two men had set up in one of the vacant rooms of the Normandy Inn, a campy little motel on the LA outskirts that was undeniably uninspired and rather dreary. Lacklustre accommodation aside, the brothers took quickly to their laptops and books, throwing themselves deep into research in between copious breaks for fast food and bottles of cheap beer.

The older section of Los Angeles, with neglected asphalt roads more reminiscent of hardened Parisian backstreets than of a modern city, offered many charming sights. The small streets were littered with little alleys and walkways, each lined left and right with gracious old villas and cottages hidden behind overgrown stone walls. One walkway, if followed diligently enough, boasted beautifully landscaped sidewalks and led right up to the Angéline Monastery’s main gates.

The convent is home to Sister Arella, a sweet thing, radiating youthful innocence and naivety over every surface and person she touches. But innocence aside, she’s grown up in the church, in a Catholic orphanage across the sea, and never indulged in the dreams that she would be hidden behind her convent’s gates forever. She knows very well that once she’s taken her final vows, she will be expected to leave the cloister and venture out into the world.

And she’s scared. Terrified at the idea.

Unwelcome thoughts keep running through her mind, ideas that she knows to be wicked and arrogant, yet she can’t contain them, can’t keep them at bay. They are like thousands of voices speaking all at once, prompting and pressuring her into doing terrible things.

And she’s afraid that, without her cloistered community of sisters, she’ll lose herself out in the wild City of Angels. She’s heard stories, rumours and hearsay regarding the people who call the big city home. They are a sinful bunch, halfway to hell already. Still, it will soon be her time to preach to them, to spread the Word of God.

There is immense preparation and groundwork to be done. She doesn’t believe she’s ready.

It’s not surprising that the demonic realm has had their eyes on her for some time, given her calling. So incorruptible and off limits, ordinarily the young nun would be a delightful trophy to the souls who seek to subdue her in the underworld. Yet, _what_ she is is not what tempts them.

Rather, it is _who_ she is.

She boasts descent from an alluring yet largely complicated lineage whose history has purposefully been obscured to even she herself. As such, dark fiends lurk just beyond the shadows, constantly watching her, waiting.

Biding their time until she returns _home_ to them.

And the pious young Roman Catholic nun in her novitiate is truly a rarity to behold, wrapped up in her habit not unlike a present – a gift for the lord, or so she intends. She’s everything a good young nun should be – chaste, honest, virtuous and pure.

Her Mother Superior is proud of her accomplishments, of her unwavering dedication to her beliefs. And she herself couldn’t be happier at how far she’s come; once a humble young orphan, left on the steps of the convent’s chapel. She’s since dedicated all seventeen years of her life solely to God and is eager to become a conduit through which He may impart divine wisdom. She’s wanted for nothing more than His ever-loving grace and to follow His holy ordinance.

Still, she’s filled with immense trepidation as the date of her vows lingers. Her mind swims with unwelcome chatter, sometimes deafening.

Poverty, chastity, obedience. The three concepts help ground and reassure her when the voices become too loud.

But she understands that there is still much to do. She is encouraged toward more and more frequent confession and reception of Holy Communion as the date draws near. Although partaking in these sacraments offers only minimal respite, she relies more and more frequently on them to quell her often frantic mind.

\---

Sister Arella, barely beyond childhood yet remarkably devout, makes the Sign of the Cross as she enters the elaborate wooden box within her abbey’s chapel. Threading her fingers together in front of herself, she kneels on the padded knee-rest of the confessional and clears her throat softly.

“Bless me, Father,” She begins, the Sacrament of Confession coming naturally to her through repetition. She has confessed once every week since her First Communion. “For I have sinned. My last confession was Tuesday.”

Silence from beyond the division, not unusual given the old custom. She presses on.

“I have been trying to absolve myself of the thoughts that keep coming to mind. The same thoughts that I had last time. I feel as though my mind conjures these things without my permission.” She pauses, dipping her head toward her clasped hands earnestly. “I’m struggling, Father, to let go of the thoughts that keep lurking in my mind. They are like seeds. They sprout into wild ideas and notions about the church – about myself. This is…prideful, I know.”

She hears the Priest clear his throat, and nervously closes her eyes. How horribly embarrassing, she reflects, to be having such thoughts yet again. Every time she attends confession and admits to her depravities, she feels that she is somehow letting her community down. Do her sisters experience the same wild and rampant thoughts that she seeks forgiveness for?

Do they entertain such prideful concepts? She finds herself envious toward her fellow parishioners.

“God, the Father of mercies…” The priest begins in a slow raspy voice and Arella’s eyes pop back open as she strains to hear him. She isn’t accustomed to his tone or timbre. It’s deep, gravelly and unfamiliar, yet he recalls the prayer of Absolution without issue. A visiting Priest, she assumes, and makes a mental note of the way he speaks his prayer.

She herself mutters the Act of Contrition prayer under her breath, concluding with an ‘amen’ just as the Priest concludes his own. She then waits patiently, sincerely hoping for adequate atonement orders to be bestowed upon her.

After a moment of repeated silence from the other side of the grating, she hears a deep, tired sigh and the Priest’s voice once again.

“These thoughts you have. Why do you think they come to you?”

Arella furrows her brow, searching for an answer. Truthfully, she isn’t sure if she has one.

“I’m not sure, Father. They simply…pop into my head.” She admits, cringing at the lack of refinement in her answer. “And from there they churn away in the back of my mind, wearing down my resolve.

“Then, Sister, perhaps instead of ignoring the ideas, you should acknowledge them. See if you can understand why they come to you.” The Priest sounds weary as he speaks, and she leans closer to the metal grate which separates them to better hear him. “Only once you recognise their meaning can you identify their purpose.”

She stutters as she quickly replies, “B-but they scare me, Father. How am I to understand them when I fear them so?”

“Your rosary, sister.” The Priest replies. “Hold it to your heart and say an Our Father. When you do that, there is no reason to be afraid. The Lord will be with you.”

She nods to herself in the small enclosed space, squeezing her hands tightly together.

“To deny your thoughts is to deny your humanity. And to better understand them, I believe a vow of silence for the rest of the day is sufficient penance for this sin. Concentrate on the meaning of your ideas in silence, Sister.”

She enacts her vow on the spot and turns to once again makes the Sign of the Cross as she moves to stand.

“And Sister,” The Priest continues quickly, his gruff voice pulling at her attention once more and forcing her knees back down against the rest. “Wear your cilice while you enact your vow.”

A peculiar instruction but the young nun nods to herself, a sufficient penalty for her shame, she accepts.

\---

Arella returns back to the main convent’s quarters en masse with her sisters, the great group of women moving as a sea of black umbrellas against the torrential rain. She quickly finds she is on gardening duty for the remainder of the afternoon, a sad thing considering the state of the weather.

The rain has been pouring relentlessly for the past few days and the heavy grey clouds that hang above the city do not offer hope of moving on any time soon. There is little optimism to be found, and yet Arella dons a large plastic raincoat over her habit as she journeys out into the large muddy vegetable patch to reap the land, however ill-advised.

The tall brick walls of the Angéline Monastery help it to hide and blend in with the city, and although it is a rather peculiar place for such a religious building, it remains inconspicuous to most of the city’s occupants. The abbey is old, far outdating most of the buildings around it. It’s ancient masonry work makes it stand out sharply against the rest of the city when one realises it is there.

It is also a mostly independent and autonomous convent, food and otherwise. It boasts sprawling gardens and flowerbeds, and vast vegetable gardens that are tended to by the convent’s vestals. Gardening is of utmost importance to the nuns within.

The produce gathered today will be used tomorrow, self-sufficient as the convent is, and so the job must be done if anyone is to eat, no matter the weather.

Arella sighs impatiently after an hour of toiling the land, smiling briefly up at Sister Mary Thomas’ elderly form who waves back to her from a window on the first story landing. Leaning back on her haunches, she wipes her dirty hands across her wet raincoat before bringing them together and blowing hot air into them. The wind is bitter, far too cold to be gardening and the daylight seems to be growing dimmer by the second. She wonders if she should return inside. Heavy raindrops turn into ice and pelt her plastic coat like hundreds of little stones, as if answering her question.

Hail would make it impossible to continue.

But instead of returning inside, she takes a moment to clear her head and think, to ponder as the Priest had instructed. The thoughts she keeps having, the wild ideas – they swim up from her subconscious almost immediately.

_Death and pain. The two are on the forefront. She gasps at how quickly gruesome images of demise and destruction come to mind. Where did they come from? Why did they come to her so easily?_

A loud screech from above makes her jump, her attention darting upward to a large black crow who’s come to rest on one of the low hanging tree branches lining the vegetable patch. She can see him ruffling his feathers, seeking shelter from the icy rain that bounces off the leaves he hides under. The crow then turns his attention to her, staring at her with his black beady eyes.

Arella stares back, absently itching her side through her coat. The cilice she wears is prickly under all her clothing, the itchy shirt brazenly placed against her skin as a reminder of her repentance. She looks down at the bouncing hail as it jumps among the grass and considers the Priest’s earlier words. While not unheard of, it did seem slightly severe to assign such a dated reprimand. Then again, she was thankful to have something to cling to, some instruction toward the possibility of forgiveness.

She looks back up toward the crow, but it has long flown away.

\---

After supper and a bout of silent prayer, Arella retires to her room for the remainder of the night. The rain is deafeningly loud throughout the monastery and lightning causes the old building’s already poorly wired lights to become erratic. One moment they are on, the next they are off. It’s of no concern to Arella, however, until she is roused from her bed late into the evening by commotion on the other side of her door.

She lays awake, listening idly to the disorder before a loud shriek jolts her upright, sending her into a frenzy. Picking up her set of well-loved rosary beads from the bedside, she squeezes them in her hands as she crosses her room and pushes her head up against the heavy wooden door, curious as to the happenings on the reverse side. There is talking, distinctive yelling, and the sound of feet running back and forth down the flagstone corridors of the convent.

Arella speedily redresses in her religious garments, tucking her feet into well-worn leather boots as she hesitantly leaves her room in search of the noise.

She trails slowly down the dim corridors of the abbey, clutching her rosary to her chest as she hears voices and movement becoming louder. A sight up ahead makes her stall. There are great dirty splotches on the ground, vast dark pools sinking into the flagstone. As she warily approaches them, she bends and dips a finger in one, rubbing the mysterious substance against her thumb.

Oil?

The commotion up ahead continues, and so does Arella. One swift turn around a corner and she’s greeted with the sight of three of her sisters, all out of bed and looking quite beside themselves. They turn abruptly to her as she approaches, eyeing her deviously from the shadows.

“Well, well, who do we have here?” Sister Mary Josephine, a tall stocky woman, asks as she tilts her head jeeringly. The other two sisters cackle loudly between themselves and one whispers.

“Well if it isn’t our sweet little sister.”

Arella takes a tentative step back, her dark eyebrows furrowing at her sister’s odd annunciation. Their voices seem strange and garbled. The lights flicker and throw their figures into sharp relief, giving Arella an opportunity to trail her eyes down from their faces to their night clothes and hands. She can just make out dark, splotchy stains on the bottoms of their dresses, leading down to their feet. They are standing in great pools of the oily substance.

But no, it is not oil.

It is red.

“We’ve been looking for you for a very long time, you know.” Sister Mary Josephine continues, stepping closer as Arella timidly retreats. “Practically a _lifetime_.”

The three sisters begin to laugh, a haughty, cackling sound that Arella is not accustomed to. When they look back at her, a flash of lightning across the inky night sky outside reveals horrifying sight.

The young nun stares in shock at her cloister sister’s eyes. Pure pitch black. She herself blinks quickly as she gapes at them, as if unbelieving what her own eyes are seeing. It is as if their eyes have become great pools of nothingness, empty voids drawing her into their depths.

Barren and hollow.

Terrifying to look at, but the young novitiate can’t look away – doesn’t dare too, for all three are slowly approaching her, menacing smiles gracing their otherwise unaltered features – eyes aside.

“Come here, little thing.” Sister Mary Josephine beckons but Arella’s body kicks into gear and she turns on her heels and begins a fast sprint down the darkened corridor of the convent toward the stairway. Chest tightening, she feels like she’s on autopilot, her legs moving underneath without effort.

She spares a look back down the unlit corridor and sees her sisters hot on her trail, racing toward her, following her every move. She speeds down the stairs, skipping two a time with nimble skill. Thank goodness she’s young enough to trapeze the place so quickly. The entities following her will have more trouble in the older forms of her sisters.

Blindly, she heads for the large main doors of the convent building but just as she reaches them, she is shoved roughly to the floor by another body. Sister Mary Agnes, a small frail old woman who typically wouldn’t hurt a fly. She slams into Arella with such force that the young girl is thrown sideways. The air is instantly knocked out of her lungs as she makes impact with the floor. The elderly nun, resembling a decrepit banshee with eyes of midnight black, stares at Arella and lets out a long, cruel chortle.

The girl struggles to her feet, gasping for oxygen to fill her winded lungs. Sister Mary Agnes looms menacingly on the floor, howling with laughter as she blocks the door. Arella frantically notices through the haphazard flashes of lightning that the old woman’s arm is jutting out at an odd angle. She feels faint at the sight, but Sister Mary Agnes – or rather whatever she’s become – doesn’t seem to care about anything.

Anything except keeping Arella inside the convent, not least about her own badly injured limb.

But Arella has to get out. She can hear the footfall of the other sisters approaching and panics, eyes wide and terrified. Still clutching her rosary beads, she utters a quick prayer before she lunges past the cackling old woman, aiming for the door. The old woman grabs at her again with her remaining good arm, snatching onto her rosary beads and tearing the string that connects them. Arella kicks with all her might as she falls forward, hears the beads clattering across the stone floor with her. Her sister’s howling cries echo through the corridors as she scrambles forward, thrusting her feet out against the nun who is greedily grabbing for her dress.

She reaches the door handle, tearing it open and is graced by a gust of wind carrying torrential rainfall. It’s bitter and instantly takes her breath away, like a swift smack to the face. She hurriedly gets to her feet, hitches her dress up and sprints manically out of the building, not bothering to look back. She flees frantically across the gardens and toward the large gates that seal the abbey off from the rest of the city, slipping in muddy puddles and across the wet grass as she runs.

She does not dare stop until she is securely on the other side of the convent’s walls, and even then, she runs further.

\---

She’s soaked through by the time her legs slow to a walking pace. Her habit is heavy and cold, and she can’t help but shiver as she walks the lonely streets of Los Angeles, energy dwindling. The rain continues to pelt her as she wanders without direction, without guidance. She isn’t sure where she’s going, but her feet keep moving forward and so she follows them. She removes her veil, tired of the water streaming down her face and bundles it in her hands.

The weather is outrageous.

She knows better than to be out in a storm, and so she begins to look for neon signs. Anything that says ‘Vacancy’ would be ideal. Not that she has any money, but just a dry reception area to stand in would suffice, a place to be out of the chilling rain.

Fate seems to favour her for once that night as she comes across a motel with a flickering sign and immediately heaves a sigh of relief. Surely the person manning the desk wouldn’t turn away a nun in such weather.

She jogs across the otherwise abandoned road, boots squelching in its deep puddles, and toward the shelter of the motel’s roof overhang. Shivering, she eyes a door marked ‘Office’, reaches for the handle and pulls it.

It doesn’t budge. She jiggles it frantically, but it still doesn’t give. Defeated, she drops her hand, her fingers numb and sore, and turns away dejectedly. Instinctively her hand buries itself in her damp front pocket, frozen fingers searching for her rosary.

It isn’t there, she remembers.

It’s gone.

She stands for a moment in the frigid cold, listening to the rain as it pours from the motel’s guttering.

_For a split second, her thoughts are once again painful. Her mind conjures evil things, foul things. She feels hatred radiating off herself in waves, directed uncontrollably. She wants to scream, to punch, to kick. Most overpoweringly, she wants to hurt._

A tall figure fumbling in front of a brightly lit vending machine off to her right pulls her attention from her thoughts. Arella is thankful for the distraction. She watches as the man pulls his jacket up over one side of his head, shielding himself from the rain as he retrieves something from the vending machine’s tray.

He turns just in time for him to catch her staring and she gulps as his eyes make contact with hers.

She must look a right mess, clad in her vestments which are sodden and no doubt sticking to her in places where the absolutely should not stick. The only sliver of mercy she has against complete indecency is the cilice the Priest had instructed her to wear underneath her habit. She feels like she’s wearing a wet doormat against her skin, but at least her modesty is intact.

“Hey, are you okay?” The man is calling out to her and suddenly approaching very quickly. As he comes closer, she takes a moment to peer up into his eyes.

Normal. Not black.

“Oh my god, you’re soaked.” He sounds genuinely concerned and Arella lowers her head slightly to look at herself. Well, he isn’t wrong. There’s water pouring from the hem of her dress and pooling around her soggy boots. She feels like a well-drowned rat.

Before she can say anything, the stranger is removing his coat and draping it around her shoulders. She wants to protest but it’s warmer than she’s felt since she shot out of bed hours earlier and she huddles into it timidly.

“Are you okay? Can you tell me your name?” His eyes are big and full of worry, something she didn’t expect to encounter out in the big city. She peers up at him, craning her neck. He’s outrageously tall. She feels like she must crook her neck almost 90 degrees to make eye contact. But his face is kind, and he’s dressed in a generic flannel shirt and jeans, nothing outwardly devious.

“A-Arella.” She stutters, her teeth chattering as she speaks. Come to think of it, she’s shaking all over. She’s just broken her vow of silence, but she can hardly care – she can barely feel her frozen limbs. “S-sister Arella.”

She watches the tall man’s brows furrow together as he gives her a once over, spots the headdress in her hands, and must put two and two together.

Yes, she’s a nun. Out in the middle of the night. In a thunderstorm.

“C’mon,” He begins to lead her down the small dry walkway, protected by the overhang. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Cleaned up? She looks down at herself again and realises she’s not only drenched through, but her dress is also partially caked with mud. Typical. It must have happened when she was trying to get out of the abbey.

She lets him lead her toward a motel room. His room, she concludes as she follows behind him numbly.

“Yo, Dean,” He calls as he cracks open the third door they pass and pokes his head in. “I’ve got an issue here.”

There’s brief conversation from the other side of the door before it’s pushed fully open to her and the man is guiding Arella into the quaint little interior.

He’s not alone. Her eyes instantly fall to another man, who she assumes is Dean, midway standing up from a small table in the room’s kitchenette. She politely nods her head to him when a glinting piece of metal on the table draws her curiosity. Her eyes fly wide with fear when she realises it is a gun.

What has she walked into?

“Holy crap.” Dean’s eyes are mimicking her own, raking over her small form. “I send you out to get drinks and you bring back a _nun_?”

“I-I’ve not yet t-taken my vows.” Arella interjects, frightened and trembling as she pools water and mud on the cheap carpet where she stands. Her legs are beyond cold and feel utterly detached. She knows she’d have no hope of running if the two strangers decided to attack her. Instead, she attempts to downplay who she is.

Perhaps if she pretends to be uninteresting, they will leave her be.

“The bathroom’s through here.” The tall man is beckoning her away from Dean and across the room. She begins to move but her eyes catch and linger on a large dirty machete lying alongside the firearm. Before she can process what she’s looking at, she finds herself moving slowly, guided by the tall man’s firm hand at her back. She’s sluggish, weighed down by her wet vestments.

“Take a shower and I’ll see if we can scrounge you up some clean, dry clothes.” He tells her as he leads her past two single motel beds and towards the door. She nods, feeling as though she’s in a daze, and steps through the threshold, turning back to watch the tall man close the door securely after her.

Motionless, she stands still on the bathroom tiles, listening to the water as it drips from her clothes onto the floor.

Firearms. They had guns and weapons splayed out on their table.

 _Foolish! How utterly foolish!_ She’s been led right into a snake-pit with no hope of escape.

Overcome with shivering, she turns and jumps as she catches sight of herself in a small mirror above the adjacent bathroom sink. She looks ghastly. Pale white with long dark hair plastered limply to her head and across her face. She feels almost as bad as her reflection looks.

She’s terrified.

Standing in their bathroom, she hesitates for a long while, considering her options. Ultimately it isn’t long before she gives in to temptation. The sting of icy wet clothes against her skin proves too much to bear and she turns the shower on, allows time for the water to heat up as she begins to peel back her sodden clothing.


	2. Chapter 2

“What do we do with her?”

“I don’t know. Get her warmed up, dry, fed. Maybe then we can figure out why she was out there all alone.”

The sounds of male voices are soft, gentle as they echo through the bathroom door. Arella presses her ear up against it, keenly listening to the conversation happening on the other side. The two men discuss her, although their conversation doesn’t appear to harbour any malice or ill-will.

But the firearm and weapon she had clearly seen on their table make her hesitant to open the door and face them again. They could be plotting any number of great nefarious acts with such tools.

Towel around her head, she sighs and turns back to her reflection in the small mirror, doing up the last buttons of the plaid shirt she had found draped over the towel rail upon her exit from the shower. That, along with a pair of men’s boardshorts, make quite the ridiculous ensemble on someone of her stature. Her form is nearly engulfed by their clothing, not that she minds too much. At least their clothes cover her modestly. She’s glad, despite everything, that their garments hang loose on her small frame.

Pausing for a moment of silent prayer, she finally musters the courage to exit the bathroom.

“You hungry?” The tall man asks as she closes the door behind herself, self-consciously trying to adjust the clothing they’ve provided her with. She eyes them both and wonders who’s clothes she’s wearing. “We have Chinese, if you eat that.”

“T-that would be lovely, thank you.” She graces both men with a small smile, not yet forgetting her manners, and approaches them cautiously where they are both seated at the small kitchen table. Her eyes scan the tabletop between them, seeing that the gun and machete have both been replaced by Chinese takeout boxes and serviettes.

The disappearance of the weapons only offers minimal respite. Now she wonders where they are, if she should expect the blade of a knife to be lodged into her back while exchanging pleasantries, or a gun to be held to her head.

The tall one gestures for her to take the spare chair between both men and she accepts the invitation respectfully, hoping her nerves don’t outwardly display her reluctance. She tries for an apology, something to garner favouritism from them. “I am so sorry…for interrupting your evening.”

Dean sniffs and leans back in his chair as she sits, arms folded tightly across his chest. He’s staring at her thoughtfully but with an evident air of distrust.

“So,” The tall man begins, diverting her attention back to him. She settles her gaze back on his kind yet concerned face. “I’m Agent Ellery and this is my partner, Agent Hale. And you are Arella, a nun?”

Agents? As in the FBI? The gun suddenly makes slight sense, although the knife remains mysterious.

She nods, yes, trying not to act too cagey. Her fingers begin to fidget in her lap.

“And what exactly were you doing wandering the streets out at night?” Dean – or rather Agent Hale – chimes in, his voice laced with suspicion. She isn’t entirely surprised, given the strange predicament in which they’d found her – or that she had found them. She should still be tucked up in her bed at the Angéline Monastery, fast alseep.

She wishes she still was.

Arella looks toward him but can’t persuade herself to maintain eye contact. He’s watching her carefully, eyes tapered as if expecting her to jump up at any moment. His face is hard to look at, not because it is unpleasant, because the opposite is very true, but because he regards her with such a condescending look.

“I-I was running…” She begins, glancing downwards to where her hands are awkwardly jumbled in her lap.

“Running? From who?” Agent Ellery’s voice is soft, humble as he beseeches information. He pushes a carton of Chinese food across the table towards her along with a pair of disposable chopsticks. Her brown eyes dart between both agents, and she can easily pick apart their differences. She feels like they’re playing good-cop-bad-cop with her. So far Agent Ellery seems more sympathetic to her dilemma, while Agent Hale is full of understandable reservation.

“F-from my sisters. They…I don’t know what happened, but they weren’t themselves.” She chews her lip, wondering how best to go about recounting her night. After a deep breath, she continues, “T-their eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Did you say their _eyes_?” Agent Hale jumps forward in his chair, swiftly changing his tact. Suddenly he’s just as concerned as his partner. “What happened to their eyes?”

Arella feels hot tears well up as she recalls her sisters lunging for her in the dark convent, their cackles and eyes as they pursued her through the dark halls of her home.

“They were…black.” Her bottom lip trembles as she speaks, an involuntary compulsion that she can’t control. Its suddenly very difficult to talk about the nights preceding events. Although she has yet to shed a tear for her dear sisters, her throat closes unwillingly at the horrific memories her mind conjures of the last few hours. She struggles to push her words out.

The cackles. The eyes. Sister Mary Agnes’ arm.

 _The blood_ – she had somehow almost forgotten about the blood they had been covered in, had been standing in.

“Normal one moment and just…empty the next.” Her focus shifts to the table. She sniffs and feels a fat soggy tear slip down her cheek. Uncomfortable with crying in the strangers’ company, she hides her face in the unnecessarily long sleeves of the shirt they’ve given her to wear.

It’s Agent Ellery’s, she discovers. It smells just like the jacket he’d offered her outside.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” She hears him murmuring to her, but despite herself she can’t help it.

She’s prided herself on nearly reaching a wonderous milestone, the age when she can take her vows, fulfil her life’s pursuit and become a full-fledged nun, but she rather unexpectedly finds herself flung back to memories of her youth.

A young child again, helpless and scared.

She breaks down in a spell of quiet sobs, shoulders hitching uncontrollably as she cries through her desolation.

Her sisters. Her poor dear sisters. Her family.

The tall agent places a tentative hand on her shoulder in a meagre attempt to comfort her. As outlandish as it seems, she does find the gesture somewhat soothing.

“You’re here now, with us.” He tells her. “You’ll be safe here.”

\---

“So, this is weird.” Dean sits back at the table in a lax position, hands shunted behind his head, eyes narrowed towards the closest motel bed. The mattress is topped with an arrangement of outdated comforters, each one tucked firmly around the sleeping form of the young nun.

She had cried herself to sleep at the table, too exhausted to stay awake, yet too afraid to lie down, to even admit that she had been tired. She had simply passed out from the toll the night had taken on her, slumped over when her bout of hiccupping sniffles had finally ceased.

Pitying her, Sam had placed her on one of their motel beds before wrapping her up tightly in extra blankets to keep away the chilly night air. She was a dainty little thing, practically the weight of a feather. It was like carrying an oversized ragdoll to bed.

“You’re telling me.” He follows his older brother’s line of sight before taking another sip from his bottle, idly wondering if it’s sacrilegious to drink beer in front of a sleeping nun.

“Any ideas as to why a tag team of demons is suddenly after a nun?” Dean’s question is a grumbling sigh, laced with frustraton. “And an apprentice nun at that. I didn’t even know nuns could be possessed.”

“No clue,” Sam continues to stare, the uncanniness of the situation creeping up on him. “But it can’t be good. Her entire convent turned on her, Dean. I don’t know what we’re meant to think.”

“Why were they so interested in her?”

Sam offers his older brother an unhelpful shrug and takes another sip, feeling more than a little useless. In all their adventures together, he’s certainly never come across demon nuns before. A priest, maybe, but a nun?

“Dunno.” He replies, honestly. “But the safest place for her right now is probably with us, I guess.”

The problem with demon nuns, he understood, was not so much the demonic entities themselves, but rather the nuns that they occupied. Although he liked to think he could unconcernedly _off_ any demon when the occasion called for it, Sam wasn’t entirely sure if he could kill a nun, a devout holy person, given his insight.

Surely killing a nun was an instant ticket to the 'deep south'. He wasn’t certain, but it felt like it would be. He believed his brother might have similar moral plights regarding the slaughter of religious vestals.

And so, with no one else to turn to, Sam unenthusiastically attempted to call their knowledgeable friend for the third time that night.

“Hey again, Castiel,” The room is otherwise silent as Sam stares up at the motel’s dated popcorn ceiling, his brother watching on. The added motion of looking up is probably fruitless, but he pushes on anyway, feels like he might get out a better signal. “Really could use your help down here.”

A moment of silence passes without reaction and Sam shoots his brother an _i-told-you-so_ frown. The third time that night was apparently not the 'charm'. Dean scrunches his face up, and Sam can see the cogs whirring together in his head as he formulates a plan. He has a sneaking suspicion that he's about to be schooled.

“Hey Cass,” Dean speaks this time, his lips struggling to stay even. Whatever he's doing, he's enjoying it. “We’ve found this thing down here. Looks like a dagger o-or maybe a spear of some kind.” It’s a blatant fabrication, made up on the spot. Sam almost can't believe the brazenness of the guy. “Kind of looks like it’s important, or like it could have stabbed someone important as they were, ya’ know, being _crucified_ or something.”

Sam shoots his brother a withering glare across the table and Dean picks up another bottle, smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. He’s about to uncap his drink when he hears and feels a great gust of air behind himself.

Their friend, of course.

“Cass, where have you been?” Sam's gaping up at the trench-coat clad man who looms silently behind Dean’s seat. He doesn’t look pleased to be there with the two brothers, as if he has prior commitments and other places to be.

“Looking for someone.” Castiel grounds out, blue eyes narrowing at the two brothers in suspicion. “Now, where is the spear? Do you have it in your current possession?”

“We’ve been looking for you.” Dean ignores the man’s question as he uncaps his drink and swivels around in his chair, raising the beverage.

Castiel doesn’t so much as bat an eyelid as he asks, “Why?”

Offering overlooked, Dean takes a swig as he points toward the bed where Sister Arella is resting.

“Her.”

Following Dean’s indication, Castiel slowly turns toward the bundle of blankets and the girl wrapped within, hesitating when his eyes land on her.

“Oh, no.” He mutters, something akin to rage briefly sweeping across his otherwise stoic features as he studies her. “What have you two done?”

“What do you mean?” Sam asks defensively, slowly getting to his feet.

“She isn’t dead, Chuckles,” Dead exhales. “Don’t worry—”

“No, she shouldn’t be here.” His words are punctuated and snappy. “Not with you two.”

Dean pulls a face, unbeknownst to Castiel who now has his back to him as he advances slowly on the sleeping girl’s form.

“Well, I hate to break it to you,” Dean sniffs, “But she found us.”

“Damn it!” Sam almost jumps at Castiel’s sudden outburst, not expecting such a violent reaction from their usually deadpan friend. Dean watches on, a little dumbfounded. The girl stirs, turning as she rouses from her sleep. “This was not meant to happen! She was not meant to cross paths with you.”

“Father?” She yawns, pawing at her face as she reclaims consciousness from sleep.

Castiel scowls down at her, unblinking as she wakes while Dean and Sam both exchange perturbed glances towards one another behind him.

“Wait. What’s going on here?” Sam asks the necessary question as he darts his eyes back to the girl in the bed.

She yawns again, beginning to sit up. “Father, is that you?”

\---

Her dreams are often beautiful watercolour things that don’t make any sense; strange oddities that her mind encounters in day-to-day life and unwraps in the sleeping realm.

In her current dream she had removed her cilice, freed herself from the prickly piece of clothing and was unhindered as she ran her nails all over her itchy body gleefully. Down her sternum and around the perfect peaches that were her breasts, she guided her hands slowly across her naked pale skin, taking time to stretch out like a cat in the summer sun.

But that was when she heard them. Her sisters. Their voices were calling to her, crying to her for help. Their wails were unimaginable, torturous howls that echoed through her sleep and into her waking thoughts.

“Damn it!” She heard the Father’s voice again, echoes of her earlier confession. Her dream swiftly changed and she was clothed again, kneeling within the small confines of the chapel’s confessional booth.

“This was not meant to happen.” She heard his gravelly voice murmuring through the grating that separated them. “She was not meant to cross paths with you.”

His voice was fading, but she was determined to catch it, unwilling to lose its wisdom. She desperately desired further consultation, further guidance from the Holy Man.

She cracks an eye open, chasing the voice that was speaking into the waking world. She doesn't know how or why, but she is sure she had heard the Priest just now speaking next to her, clear and close. She felt his presence near, as if she could reach out and touch it.

“Father?” She murmurs, a yawn escaping her as she moves her body. She’s wrapped in so many layers; large clothes and heavy motel blankets. She scrubs Agent Ellery’s shirtsleeves to her eyes in an attempt to rub the sleep from them, forcing them to open.

Sleep still pulls at her body and she feels incredibly tired, as if she’s barely rested at all.

“Father, is that you?”

Reluctantly, she heaves herself up slowly in the bed, peering at the trench-coat clad man who stands near her, watching her with a stony stare. Through bleary eyes she takes in the rest of the small motel room, noticing the two men staring back at her from the kitchenette.

“Cass, do you know her?” Agent Ellery asks the man, his brown eyes hoping from Arella to the back of the stranger’s head swiftly. The other agent is glaring at the man with an irritated look, bottle poised in one hand. He looks like he could smack so-called _Cass_ in the back of the head with it if need be.

“It is… _complicated_.” As soon as he speaks, Arella is flooded with relief. Yes, it is undoubtedly the Priest from earlier in the day. His deep, gruff voice is unmistakable. But his appearance is somewhat jarring.

She had thought him to be an elderly man, given the age of the other Priests who frequented the Angéline Monastery’s chapel for service. She supposed she had never seen this particular Priest give mass, but by the way he had taken her confession earlier that day, she had simply assumed him to be much older.

But he is startlingly more youthful than she had thought. Still, she finds herself staring toward his neck, idly wondering where his clerical collar is, or his other vestments for that matter.

“Father,” She begins, darting her eyes back upwards to his. He stands broadly, stiff as a statue as she makes eye contact with him. “Are you here to help me? To help my sisters?”

He doesn’t reply, simply opens his mouth, flounders for words, closes it again and turns sharply away to where the agents are watching in great suspense.

“How did she get out?” He asks them, ignoring the fact that she is still sitting in the bed, watching him, listening to him. His question confuses her.

“Get out?” Agent Hale asks, standing so sharply that his chair’s wooden legs shriek across the linoleum. “Of where? Her nunnery?”

“Yes.” Her Priest snaps briskly, his voice low and demanding. “How did she leave the convent?”

“Well, from the sound of it, she ran out the door crying and screaming.” Agent Ellery furrows his brow and gives Arella a pointed stare as he speaks, acknowledging her presence and story thus far.

“What do you mean?” The Priest asks, and Agent Hale has the decency to reach out and pull him to the side before he continues to talk.

It’s for naught though, as she can clearly hear every word they speak. Still, Agent Ellery has the forethought to awkwardly dismisses himself from their conversation and approach her, attempting to draw her attention away from their conversation by charming her with more cold Chinese food.

“Demons, Cass.” Agent Hale hisses, peering over the man’s beige shoulder at where his partner has joined Arella at the foot of her bed. “All of her sisters. They were all possessed.”

“That isn’t possible. They were not meant to find her there.”

“Find her?” The agent throws his hands up in exasperation, his voice becoming a little louder. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Dean, this girl, this nun…she does not concern you.” The Priest – _Cass_ – is whispering, but his raspy voice carries easily. “I’ve been keeping her hidden since she was _born_.”

Arella’s heart jumps erratically in her chest as she absorbs their conversation, hears the Priest’s abrupt declaration.

_Demons? Since she was born? What on Earth are they talking about?_

Agent Ellery quickly springs forward toward the small television set at the end of the beds and mashes the buttons on the front, perhaps hoping the old entertainment system will provide some distraction from the ongoing conversation. Arella can’t quite believe what she’s hearing, her concentration dashing between the Priest and the sudden sharp buzz of the television static.

“What? Why?” Agent Hale yells and this time the trench-coat wearing man pauses his conversation to look over his shoulder toward her. She stares wide-eyed back at him, white as a sheet and partially shell-shocked. Without another word he walks towards the motel door, yanks it open and motions for the agent to join him outside.

\---

Her head is a whirlwind of angry confusion, not because she can’t piece together what little information she has been given, but because she feels as though she is being lied to. Nothing about the situation seems to make sense, least yet that pertaining to the fates of her sisters.

“Agent Ellery, forgive me, but I’m confused.” She gives the young agent a profound stare, her voice urgent as she feels her chest begin to tighten.

“Sister, Sister, it’s okay.” He’s moving from the television set to sit next to her on the bed and suddenly she feels as though she can’t catch her breath, like she’s slowly suffocating in the small room.

Her thoughts cloud over with unwelcome ideas the closer he comes. She can’t help it, they spread through her like wildfire.

_Her mind flurries with a thousand dark snippets, sinful ideas and images surging forward. She wets her lips absently, carnal desires briefly slipping through the nebula of her cognizance as she admires Agent Ellery’s form; his face, his body. She wonders if he’d mind if she reached out and touched him, ran her hands along the nape of his neck in adulation._

_But the thought slides away as another takes its place. Death. Destruction. What would it feel like to carve into Agent Ellery’s flesh instead of worshipping it? How deep would she have to slice in order to kill?_

_And then another thought, an inkling, slides into place atop the rest._

_They are lying. They are all lying._

“My brother sometimes says stupid things,” Agent Ellery is explaining, raking a hand tensely through his shaggy hair, but the words jumble together in Arella’s head. She wonders what he’s talking about as she stares up at him, eyes wide.

His brother? What?

“But it’s okay, Sister. Try and relax, it’s okay.

“No, Agent, I don’t believe it is.” She gasps, her heart fluttering wildly as she tries to remember the words she had heard spoken by the other agent.

Had he told the Priest that her sisters were indeed possessed? Had she heard that right?

And that other thing…

“What did the Priest mean when he said he’d been keeping me hidden since I was born?” She rushes out the question angrily as Agent Ellery attempts to calm her, placing a steady hand on her shoulder and telling her to breath.

She’s hyperventilating and she knows it, can’t help it.

“I can explain—” He begins but she cuts him off, springing away from his touch.

“And how exactly do you know him?” She demands, reeling away from him. Agent or not, nothing is adding up.

“Me and Dean— uhh, Agent Hale…we’re friends with Cass.” She can see the young man is earnestly trying to tell her the truth, but all she can hear is the inconsistencies that emerge from his story.

Quick as she can, she darts out of the bed in a flurry of tangled blankets and across the small motel room with intentions of heading toward the door. She hears Agent Ellery belt out a quick yell but before she can make it two feet across the floor, the door is flung open by Agent Dean Hale who re-enters with a bemused look on his face, trailed closely by the Priest who Agent Ellery had referred to as Cass.


	3. Chapter 3

“Because she is _very_ special.” It’s an admission that gives Dean a discernibly bad feeling. The shorter man is standing stock-still, back to the rain, blue eyes slanted toward him with an unblinking, overly impassioned gaze. 

_‘Fuck’_ is all he can think in return. To say he feels uneasy is an understatement. He should have figured Castiel would be tied up in this job right from the word ‘go’. The man wasn’t exactly known for keeping favourable company, his family already well-established as a _bag of dicks_.

The blue-eyed angel stares on, unwavering, and it’s enough to tie Dean’s stomach in knots. He already knows Castiel is going to tell him something he doesn’t want to hear.

“She’s a _half-breed_ , Dean.”

“A half _what_?” Dean’s eyes jump to the motel door to ensure its closed and then linger.

“Half-breed. Half angel and half demon.” Castiel tilts his head a fraction to the left, eyes earnestly seeking Dean’s. “As you can imagine, she is quite the asset to either side.”

“Are you kidding me?!” He erupts, hands up in the air again but this time his tone is more frantic, more desperate. Oh, he’s pissed.

The angel’s face remains indifferent, as if set in stone as he regards Dean’s upsurge of emotion. Breathing deep, Dean takes a moment to recompose himself, to attempt to lower his voice and keep his cool.

He fails, and his voice pitches uncontrollably. “You knew this girl was a friggin’ _celestial_ , and you decided to hide her in a _nunnery_?!”

“Yes.” Castiel’s reply is blunt, the absurdity of the situation lost on him, but not on Dean who is clenching and unclenching his hands at his sides.

“And what, you’ve been monitoring her under the guise of the good ol’ Father this whole time?”

“Yes.”

“You’re insane, Cass. Insane!” Dean shakes his head and turns, jade eyes flitting upward toward the rain as it pours from the guttering above them.

Well and truly fucked, they are.

A half-breed. A fucking half-breed. How does that type of thing even happen? A rampant thought crosses his mind. He looks back, eyes narrowed. “How can she even be a half-breed? Doesn’t that mean an angel and demon have to…get… _busy_?”

“Busy?” Castiel’s eyebrows initially dip, but he slowly comes to understand Dean’s suggestion. “Believe it or not, Dean, copulation is not limited to mortals.”

“Oh, well that’s just lovely.” Sarcasm drips from Dean’s words as he folds his arms tightly. “Good to know you guys are all up there getting laid.”

“We don’t _lay_ , we—“ Castiel begins to clarify but loses his train of thought. “Never mind, it’s complicated. What is important is that I take her off your hands.”

Dean’s eyebrows are momentarily lost in his hairline. “And so, this chick just happens to be your responsibility?”

Castiel nods. “God _did_ entrust me to keep her safe.”

There’s a brief pause before Dean leans in, his own eyes squinted and curious. “She’s not _your_ kid, is she?” He asks in a hushed whisper, barely audible over the heavy rain.

But the angel picks it up on the insinuation, acute ears hearing anything and everything. He doesn’t back away from Dean’s proximity, the idea of personal space still eluding him.

“No, Dean. She is not my offspring.”

Dean backs up, eyes rolling. _Ever the killjoy_. “Right, right. Okay. So, God told you to look after her, and so you hid her?”

“In the most sanctified place I could find.”

Dean snorts back a laugh and shakes his head again. “Great load of good that did, huh?”

Reluctantly, Castiel’s cheeks slightly colour and he dips his head downward a fraction. He looks almost ashamed, if that’s an emotion he can convey. “I was unaware as to what lengths hell would go through to reclaim her."

“Great.” Dean mocks, running a hand over his face in exasperation. “So, we have a convent of demonic nuns out on their own hunt, and the thing they’re after - their own flesh and blood - is in there with Sam? And she doesn’t even know it?”

Castiel doesn’t reply straight away. He stares up to Dean once more with his typical unwavering attention.

_Fuckity fuck fuck. They are so totally boned._

“Why are you and Sam here?” Castiel’s question knocks Dean from his brief reverie.

“In LA?” He juts his chin out towards the continuous rainfall. “Got a tipoff from Bobby about the weather. Guess it’s a good thing we came, seeing as we saved your little half-breed from freezing to death.”

Dean offers his friend a somewhat dirty look before reaching for the door handle and pushing back inside.

\---

Arella is so startled that she falls to her knees as the door swings open. Agent Ellery is instantly by her side, helping her to her feet and asking if she’s okay, but she bats the young agent away, her attention focused solely on the Priest who looms behind Dean.

“Father,” She speaks as soon as the two men re-entered the room, looking fearfully toward the trench-coat wearing man and wrapping her swathed flannel arms around herself nervously. “I’m so sorry but I must confess…I don’t understand the situation. What is really going on? What happened to my sisters?”

Dean closes the motel door firmly behind himself, eyeing the man dubiously as he watches him cast around the room for words

“They have been…overtaken.” His voice low and ominous and sends a chill through Arella from head to toe. She doesn’t understand what he means. “But fear not. Through the Lord they will…find salvation.” And then, as if it were an afterthought, he continues. “And…the Lord is with thee.”

Dean shoots Agent Hale a jaded, frustrated look as Arella stares ahead, mouth agape.

Her family – her sisters. What was he telling her?

“O-overtaken?” She repeats, her voice wavering. Tears sting the corners of her eyes, clouding her vision. She had thought she had been all cried out from before. Apparently not. “W-will they be okay?”

There’s a pause as the Priest narrows his steely blue eyes at her, causing her to retreat into herself. Something about the way he looks at her stirs something deep inside. A weird feeling of bitterness that she can’t quite understand.

“I can’t say.”

\---

“Cass, I’m also pretty confused.” Dean marvels at how light the girl is as he cradles Arella gingerly, moving her back to the motel bed.

Upon witnessing Castiel slowly extending his hand toward the girl’s temple, he’d darted around him and braced himself just in time for the girl to fall into his arms. Better she collide with him than the hard, worn-out carpet, he had thought."

Her head lolls back against his arm, hanging pendulously as he rests her against the pillows. Tucking a blanket around her once more, he takes a moment to examine her tear-stained cheeks before withdrawing himself.

A half-breed. A flesh and blood half-breed. And yet, she looks so normal. So innocent.

Turning back to Castiel, he continues, “Why did the demons attack her if they didn’t want to hurt her?”

The angel is fixing him with a glare, watching his every movement. “They mean to draft her into war.” He replies, voice low. “If they get to her, it’s only a matter of time before they convince her to join their ranks. In opposition, heaven does not want her involved.”

“Hence the hiding.” Sam speaks up from where he’s standing behind the angel, watching the interaction.

“Yes.”

Dean’s brow twitches upward. “So, the demons aren’t going to hurt her…just ask her real nice to go fight with them?”

“Essentially.” Castiel admits, and his attention moves from Dean toward the nun’s sleeping form. “But it isn’t as straightforward as that. The reason heaven doesn’t want her to fight on either side is because of what she is.”

“Let me guess: an abomination.” Dean retorts. Castiel doesn’t look up from the girl, but he nods once.

“You are partially correct. To have a part-angel fight for hell or a part-demon fight for heaven is unfathomable. Hell would either be at a great advantage by her service, or heaven would be taking a massive risk.”

A silent chortle erupts from Dean. “So, if heaven can’t have her, no one can?”

Castiel resumes his intense stare at Dean, taking a shallow breath before he responds.

“And Bingo was his name-o.”

Dean’s face crumples in confusion as he throws a questionable look over to where Sam is standing, his brother equally perplexed as to the angel’s rather eccentric choice of words. Someone needs another vocabulary lesson, apparently.

\---

She doesn’t remember falling asleep again, but she wakes to a gloomy room bathed in shadows. Arella stirs atop the motel bed, trying to recall the last waking moments she had. There isn’t much to remember, but she can vaguely pull together notable snippets of the Priest stepping toward her with a hand outstretched to her head.

She had been expecting a blessing, but instead she had dozed off.

She sits up unhurriedly, taking her time to adjust to the dimly lit room. Wind howls wildly outside and whips rain violently against the motel room’s windows. Perhaps that’s what woke her.

Casting her eyes to the side, she sees a large lump in the twin bed next to hers. One of the agents, she assumes. Letting her eyes roam over to the kitchenette she spies a lone figure seated at the table.

Dean, or as Agent Ellery had called him, _Agent Hale_. He occupies one of the seats, pistol in hand. Arella squints through the darkness, intrigued to find him cleaning the firearm with practiced skill. FBI agent or not, the sight of a firearm is still menacing to her and a chill prickles down her spine. She quickly looks away to glance ahead. There, her eyes fall upon a dark silhouette standing behind the old television set near the end of her bed.

Person-shaped.

Her heart skips a beat and she yelps in surprise, causing both Dean and the lump in the bed next to hers to spring up.

Dean is at her bedside in an instant, gun poised in his hand and aimed at the shadowed figure. A sudden torch light illuminates the broad form of the Priest, and Dean lets out a grumble as he lowers his gun.

“Cass, what in the hell are you doing?”

“Sorry.” He replies, raising his hands slightly as he squints into the brightness if the torchlight. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Agent Ellery clicks off the torch, heaving a great sigh and falling back into his bed.

“It’s 9 am.” He continues speaking, looming in the darkness once again. “I thought you would all be awake by now.”

“Wait,” Agent Ellery looks up. “It’s 9 am? Why is it still so dark?”

Arella looks around the dim room in joint confusion with the agent.

“Power’s out.” Dean explains, returning to his seat at the table. Castiel moves to join him and Agent Ellery slowly crawls out of his bed, too. “It went out sometime around half three this morning. Storm clouds are so dark outside that it might as well be night."

Arella watches all three of them dubiously from her bed. She wonders if Dean has slept at all, or if he’s been up all night. And the Priest? She has no idea where he must have gotten to, but both of the agents seemed surprised that he had reappeared in their room.

_Reappeared_ being the operative word. Still, she’s seen weirder things in the last few hours.

And the morning crawls by slowly after that. The rain and hail that continues to pour from the sky outside assaults the streets like an air raid. It’s relentless, falling in heavy sheets that lash wildly against anything and everything caught in the deluge.

Arella had wrapped herself in a blanket, pulled one of the kitchen chairs up to the windows and lifted the old lace curtains to peer out, watching the storms carnage from the safety of the motel room.

“Don’t get too close to that window.” Dean had warned her, but she had ignored him, too engrossed in the atrocious weather beyond it as she tried to piece together her thoughts. She had never seen rain quite like this before.

The three men continued to talk amongst themselves as the dark morning drew on, acting as if she wasn’t in the room. Every so often she’d catch her name in their conversation and it piqued her interest, causing her to glance warily over to them.

Eventually she found her inquisitive nature getting the better of her. She heaved a great sigh, stood from the window and rounded on the three men where they sat at the table.

\---

“I don’t get it, Cass.” Dean speaks in hushed tones as he throws a crumpled-up map of the city across the small table and Sam eagerly begins to unfold it, pressing down the kinks in the paper to lay it flat. “You say she’s a half-breed, but all I see is a nun. Where’s the evil?”

“It’s there.” Castiel replies, eyeing Arella as she perches next to the far window.

“Don’t get too close to that window.” Dean yells over his shoulder, but she purposefully defies him and doesn’t budge. _Some nun. Maybe Castiel has a point_.

“Dormant.” The angel continues, looking down at the map. “If she spends enough time with you, I believe you will see it emerge.”

Sam looks up with his lips pursed into a tight frown. “So, at some point she’s just going to pick up a kitchen knife and hack us all to death? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Potentially.” Castiel admits. “The dark soul within her provides her with ideas, but the light inside won’t let her go through with them.”

“Fuck that.” Dean pulls out a marker and identifies their motel on the map, scrawling a circle around it with a heavy hand. “If there’s a demon in there, we need to kill it.”

“But she’s part angel, Dean.” His brother protests, ever the voice of reason. “We can’t kill her if there’s good in her.”

“Sam is correct, Dean.” Castiel informs him. “Every shadow, no matter how deep, is threatened by morning light.”

“Incoming.” Sam coughs and sits up as the girl crosses the room towards them, draped in a gaudy mustard comforter.

“Forgive me, but I’ve had enough.” Arella pulls her arms tightly across her chest, bunching the thick faded fabric.

Castiel’s eyes narrow in conjunction with her presence. “What do you mean, Arella?” He asks, looking up at her from Dean’s crude etchings.

“You’re keeping something from me.” She accuses, eyeing all three of them. “I do believe I’ve seen enough last night to be told the truth.”

“We aren’t keeping anything from y—” Agent Ellery speaks but is instantly cut off by her continuation. She’s decidedly snippy.

“None of your stories make any sense.” She presses as she turns to the agents. “You two claim to be FBI agents with different last names, but you, Agent Ellery,” She lets go of the comforter to point a finger in his specific direction, making him sit up a little straighter again. Being berated by a nun was not typically on his agenda. “You referred to Dean as your brother. And is it standard practice for agents to carry machetes on their cases?”

Dean swallows audibly next to him, his Adams apple bobbing as he exchanges a careful glance with his supposed partner. “Ah, w-well…y’see—”

“And you, Father.” She ignores Dean and turns toward the trench-coat clad man who, unlike his two friends, doesn’t shy away from her ardent accusations. “I’ve never met a priest with such a dismissive attitude toward his attire. Not only is your choice in street clothes _curious_ to say the least, but you also sound like you smoke ten cigarettes a day.”

There is a pregnant pause in the room as Castiel tilts his head slowly, formulating what should have been a well-calculated reply given the time it took.

“My holy vestments…are being…dry-cleaned.”

Dean looks as though he could reach across the small table and slap the man.

“Perplexing, all of you!” Arella throws her hands up, exhausted by their constant fabrications and stories. Their lies are obvious, but she doesn’t know why they bother. Nevertheless, she’s had time to formulate her own ideas and opinions. She decides to offer them, wonders if she’s hit the mark, if she’s even close.

“Since you won’t tell me the truth, I’ll tell you what I think is happening. I think my sisters were possessed by devils. Foul serpents who slithered their way from hell in search of form. And now they are running amok!"

“Dean, we have to tell her.” Agent Ellery turns to his partner almost instantly, and for a moment she understands the young man’s plight, sympathises with him. He wants to tell her the truth, but evidently his partner won’t let him.

“Tell me what?!” Arella cries, pleads to the two Agents, but it is unexpectedly the other man who speaks up.

“Arella, you…you’re surprisingly accurate.” He states, his eyes still narrowed at her.

“Then…they were indeed possessed?” She assumes and his reply is simple.  
  
“Yes.” 

“My poor sisters.” Her heart breaks for them, for all their toil and sacrifice. It’s like a punch in the gut, to be told such an atrocity.

“It’s okay.” He follows up, and she looks at him hopefully. “They can be saved through the Lord.”

For the first time in her life, the words make her hesitate. Her whole existence she’s known such a statement to be undeniably true, yet her mind is swimming, chanting to her that he’s still lying.

_Lying. Lying. Lying._

But why? She can feel it. Every time he lies, she can sense the fabrications – like his deception is somehow tainting her being, leaching into her soul.

“Oh, shut up!” She cries angrily, suddenly irate. That outburst alone is worth at least fifty Hail Marys. She slams her palms face down on the small table. “You aren’t even a Priest, are you?!”

There’s another pause before he answers.

“No.”

She had figured as much.

“And you two?” She turns back to the other two men who are sharing guilty glances between themselves. “FBI agents?

Dean looks away and coughs awkwardly.

“No.”

Their treacheries are beyond ludicrous. She could _scream_. She’s furious with all three of them.

“Great. Just great.” She fumes as she draws back from the table and begins to pace in front of them. “I’ve been driven from my home, my family, and into the dominion of three liars.”

“But we can help, Arella. This is what we do.” Agent Ellery – or whoever he is – is speaking again. She eyes him warily, wondering of his true identity.

“We track down demons and gank them.” Dean confirms and she twists her face as she paces in front of them.

“And what?”

“Kill them.” Agent Ellery elaborates. “We send them back to hell.”

\---

The atmosphere in room three of the Normandy Inn is foreboding. The power is still out, the rain still falling outside. Its intermingled with occasional ice and flashes of lightning, providing the room with short, sharp bursts of illumination.

“Okay, let’s start again. No lies this time.” The tall man throws Arella a ginger smile across the table and she doesn’t know quite why, but the thoughts in her head quieten down. She wants to believe the man is being sincere. “My name is nam, and this is my brother, Dean.”

Her eyebrows climb as she finally hears his real name. No personas or facades this time.

“Samuel?” She sounds surprised because she actually is. “Such a proud biblical name.”

“Uhm…n-no,” He glances sideways to his brother, searching for words. “We…we weren’t raised in a religious household. We were named after our grandparents.”

“I see.” Arella nods civilly and turns to the other man sitting with them, the one who had been masquerading as a priest at the [Angéline](https://www.christchurchcarmel.org.nz/Vietnam.html) Monastery. When he locks eyes with her, she gets a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. A weird sort of pulling sensation that makes her feel uneasy. “And you? Cass, is it? Cassidy?"

“Castiel.” He informs her, staring at her with a peculiar intensity.

“That’s an interesting name.” She remarks and is about to ask where it’s from when he promptly supplies the answer.

“It’s also biblical.” Arella finds it is her narrowing her eyes this time.

“No, I don’t believe it is in the Bible.” She insists, knowing fully well she didn’t excel in her years in seminary to be proved wrong now.

“Not the versions you’ve read.” He replies and she opens her mouth to object but is cut off by Dean.

“Don’t mind him. Our friend Cass here is a one hundred percent, good old-fashioned ang—” Castiel enthusiastically slaps a large hand directly over Dean’s mouth, essentially cutting him off mid-sentence. Sam’s mouth falls open, captivated by the sudden interaction.

“ _Anglican_.” He supplies, giving both Dean and Sam a forceful glare before his eyes fall back to Arella. “I’m an Anglican.”

After a moment of confused pause, she manages a quiet noise of acceptance, mildly curious as to what all three of them are playing at. They’ve still not quite managed to tell her the truth, but for the moment she is content with accepting their half-truths despite their equivocation. For all she knows, it could be the closest to authenticity that she will ever get from them. One question still plays on her mind though, and she voices it, mildly suspicious.

“Well, I understand you Sam. And your brother, Dean.” She gives them both a pointed stare and Dean pushes Castiel’s hand away from his mouth, rubbing where it had been with the back of his sleeve. “But you, Castiel. I don’t understand where you fit in with all this.”

As she looks at him, the voices and ideas in her mind that had previously allayed begin to surge to life again, chanting words and notions as to the man’s true nature.

_Liar. Liar. Lair._

Her hands begin to fidget nervously on the table in conjunction with her thoughts. She slides them into her lap, tilting her head cautiously toward the man as she speaks her concerns.

“Tell me please, what were you doing in my abbey’s chapel yesterday?”

There’s silence in the room for a second or two, but for Arella it feels like it stretches on for eternity as she awaits a reply.

“We had a tip-off that something was about to happen.” Sam pipes up after a quiet moment, bestowing Castiel with an adequate answer. “See, when there’s unusual weather patterns it tends to point to demonic work.”

“Our friend Bobby tracks this sort of stuff.” Dean explains, green eyes glancing toward Castiel. “Going on his hunch, we sent in our holy _tax accountant_ to scope the place out.”

Arella leans back in her chair, looking down at her hands clasped together in her lap. So, this was the lie they intended to play.

Why were they so desperate to keep this man’s nature a secret? Just who was he?

She flexes her fingers as she decides to play along. If they wanted to shield him, so be it. The debts of deceit were always paid in the fulness of time.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam makes it look easy as he hangs the coat hanger bearing the load of Arella’s damp habit precariously over the curtain rail, loudly proclaiming Catholicism to anyone who dares peer through the window. Her religious tunic is surprisingly not the weirdest thing in the room, although it does catch the eye of the motel keep who's nervous attention flits around the room.

“It ‘aint never been this bad for this long before.” She hears him make light conversation with Dean at the door. “I’m sorry I can’t offer anything else. If you’s be gettin’ hungry, there’s a handy convenience mart ‘round the corner with its own generator. Still open ‘till the flooding gets bad ‘round here, I think.”

He had been thoughtful enough to bring them extra blankets and candles, which was rather generous given the condition of the weather.

Arella runs her fingers through her unruly hair, attempting to smooth the dark swath away from her face. She wonders what the old man must think: three older men shacking up with a teenager, in a room with only two beds. She shoots him an embarrassed smile when his eyes pass over her.

“Thanks. These will come in handy.” Dean smiles and indicates to the candles as he bids the old man goodbye. He turns as the door shuts and hands them to Sam who’s already withdrawn a lighter from his pocket, ready to go.

The brother dynamic between them is fascinating and, regrettably, Arella finds she has more than ample time to study it. Dean is older, harder, fiercer, and Sam’s younger, more gentle – but unmissably larger. Like a giraffe, he is. Still, they share many visual features that the young nun couldn’t believe she had originally missed.

Of course, they were brothers. It was obvious now. And they seem to share a profound brotherly bond. It was quite heart-warming to observe. She did so from a reclined position against some pillows on one of the motel beds, imitating boredom as she regarded them silently.

“How good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Castiel’s gruff voice interrupts her observations and she turns to find him sitting at the end of the second bed, staring in a similar fashion at the two men.

“Quoting Bible verses to me now?” She can’t help but let out a huff of forced laugher at his audacity. This, the man who had impersonated a priest, who had misleadingly taken her earlier confession, had the nerve to preach the Holy Book? Blinking, Arella inwardly grimaced. She hadn’t even considered the fact that he had offered her wisdom when she had been most vulnerable, thinking she had been coming clean to a Man of God.

What a joke.

“Stating a fact.” His voice is deep and reserved, somewhat yearning as he watches them.

She chooses to divert her attention from the brothers to him instead. He comes across as a strangely enigmatic man who stands out from both Sam and Dean like a sore thumb. The more she looks, the more he does resemble an office drone who’s been on a bender.

She observes him quietly as he, in turn, surveys the brothers. She inspects all the physical attributes that she can. He looks tired, worn down. His face is all hard lines and edges, eyes narrowed into small slits, lips pursed tightly together. His five o'clock shadow makes him look fatigued, rough, in sharp contrast to his business-like attire.

She didn’t know anything about him, doesn’t know why she should care. Except he has a history with the brothers, enough for them to lie on his behalf. Their relationship seems deeply rooted, perplexing. He doesn’t dress like they do, and he certainly doesn’t act like they do. He seems almost alien in comparison.

Still, he looks at them with a sort of weird appreciation, or perhaps it’s yearning. Clearing her throat, she decides to take a stab in the dark.

“Family issues?” She questions, wondering if he’ll humour her with information.

A few seconds pass before he slowly nods.

Oddly, she begins to feel sympathetic toward him despite the lack of familiarity. A curious man, and yet an ever more curious fascination was developing. Just who was he? And why did he befriend such strange people? Monster hunters, demon slayers – whatever they wanted to call themselves, it was a bizarre trio.

The heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach begins to feel lighter as she throws herself into deeper thought.

“You’re not close with your siblings then?” She presses, trying to warm the unfriendly tension between them with a bit of simple conversation.

She sees him tense his shoulders beneath his coat. “Not particularly.”

“A shame.” She replies. “How many do you have?”

“Enough.”

A strange man indeed. She’s about to enquire as to the meaning behind his earlier words – about _keeping her hidden_ – when at the last minute she decides against it. Given his clear unwillingness to convey even simple details about himself, she doubts he will provide any further meaningful enlightenment.

As much as it annoys her, it’s pointless dwelling on such things, although she often couldn’t help it.

_She can’t help other things either, such as thinking it was a pity for God to have wasted such a nice face on such an insufferable man. The least he could do is care of it. She fists her hands tightly as she eyes him, wishing she could tell him to buy a better razor._

But she feels the familiar pangs of guilt at such thoughts and pushes them away before they evolve into something far more sinister, before those dreadful ideas take over once again.

Sam and Dean are another story. Compared to Castiel, they are an open book ready to be studied. Sam is good natured and deeply kind, easy to strike up a conversation with. And he is patient, explaining the wild ins and outs of their _hunter_ lifestyle despite her earlier wariness.

His brother is very vigilant around her. He’s still hesitant and unsure. Fair enough, she thinks. She would be, too. She’s caught him staring at her a few times, as if he was half expecting her to move or vanish. Despite his guarded nature, he’s still willing to accommodate her presence which is more than she could ask for. He’s kind too, she decides. He just doesn’t display it as openly as Sam.

But Castiel seems emotionless and withdrawn, an outcast between the two brothers. His responses to her are snappy, brief.

He’s unusual.

He holds his body like isn’t quite used to it, like he doesn’t quite know how it’s meant to move.

But she doesn’t have time to dwell on what he is or isn’t. There’s another pressing matter that she needs to address. Reluctantly, she draws herself up from the bed and crosses the small room to the kitchenette.

“Excuse me,” She interrupts the two brothers who’ve been steadily working over their map. They look up in surprised unison to find her standing beside their chairs. “I hate to interrupt, but I have to perform…certain ablutions.”

“You need to what?” Dean quirks a brow at her, while Sam elbows him in the ribs.

“She needs a wash, Dean.” He says and Dean mouths a quick ‘oh’.

“Alright.” Sam nods, indicating consent. “But be quick.”

\---

“So, this is where the monastery is. And this is where we are.” Sam runs a long finger across Dean’s scribbles, following a line that was drawn between the two locations on the map. He draws a deep breath, leaning back in his chair. “She ran a long way.”

“Demons will make ya’ do that.” Dean comments, necking the final remnants of his drink.

“Mhm. So, what’s the next move?”

“I’m thinking we give the convent a little visit.” Dean shrugs.

“And what? Drop Sister Arella off with Bobby? Or…”

“You can’t just drop her off somewhere.” Castiel stands hesitantly at Dean’s side, appearing from thin air just as Arella had moments before. “Now that the demons have her scent, they’ll be able to track her down no matter where she is.”

“So, are we babysitting the nun now?” Dean queries, sounding sceptical.

Castiel unenthusiastically nods. “A nun who also is an angel, yes.”

“But who also is a demon.” Sam points out.

Once again, after a moment of hesitancy, “…yes.”

Sam sighs, moving forward and leaning heavily on the table as he stares down at their map. “Cass, if we’re keeping her with us, you can’t just masquerade as a human around her. You have to tell her the truth.”

“She is a nun, Sam.” Castiel’s eyebrows furrow but his features remain calm. “A devout believer. She’s devoted her entire life to her belief.”

“Yeah, but that’s in no small part thanks to you.” Sam seems eager for a verbal sparing match, not that Castiel is privy to such overt cues.

“Regardless, if I was to even do so little as to tell her what I am, it would fundamentally change her perception of life.” Castiel stares between the two men meaningfully, making his point clear. “There is a fine line between believing the truth and knowing the truth. Right now she believes, and her life is built upon that belief. You are asking me to remove her belief. To destroy her faith. I won’t do that.”

Dean lets out a patronizing huff. “Since when do you have moral dilemmas about revealing what you are?”

Castiel tapers his eyes into a squint. “Would you want to see if seeing meant that you would have to believe?”

“Isn’t that a Joan Osborne song?” Dean looks up, briefly bewildered that mid 90’s pop-rock was on their angelic friend’s repertoire.

“Who?” Castiel flounders for a moment. “Regardless, would you? If you could go back to before you met me, before you truly believed in angels and heaven, would you?

“You can’t keep it a secret from her forever, y’know.” Dean leans back from the table, heaving a great sigh and rubbing a hand to his face. “If she really is this half-breed thing and hell isn’t going to stop going after her, eventually she’ll wonder why she’s being singled out.”

There is a pause before Castiel responds, quieter than he had been before. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“We won’t always be there to protect her.” Dean adds with a stern look toward his friend before concluding, “And neither will you.”

\---

The water is cold, although she doesn’t mind. She’s long grown used to inconsistent water temperatures in the abbey. The old pipes and furnaces in the building are in dire need of repair.

_Were_ in dire need of repair. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to go back, or if the brothers will keep her cooped up in the motel room forever.

She washes her hands, her face, pausing to watch her reflection as the light from a lone candle placed next to the sink dances across her face. The flame flickers, throwing her features into relief.

A part of her still can’t believe this whole mess has happened. Demons. Taken her sisters. Possessed them. They are real. The idea of demonic possession is in line with that of her belief, but it is so unheard of in the religion that the notion is nearly foreign.

_Still, somehow, she’s always known such things existed. She’s always known demons were real._

And the Winchesters? Two men who had taken it upon themselves to fight such evil forces… Arella hadn’t been expecting to encounter mere decency outside her abbey, let alone such great acts of gallantry and valour. Truly, she marvelled at their deeds.

Nerves somewhat abated at the thought, she releases a breath she’s been holding over the sink, leaning on it for support. Her shoulders slump tiredly, the old sink groaning even under her slight frame.

When she glances up, she rakes her eyes over her face and can’t help but notice that her pupils seem wildly uneven. Her left one is normal, while her right one, cast in the shadow of the room, is massive. Distressingly large, as if she’s been concussed. But her head doesn’t hurt, and as she teeters forward to peer at it, it seems as if the pupil has completely overcome the colour of her iris, and yet still grows.

Closer still as she rocks up on her tippy toes, her right eye seems to darken the more she watches it, the black pupil growing to encompass her entire eye. Twisting her angle, she gazes closer until her nose almost bumps the mirror’s cold surface.

Something is very wrong.

She leaps away from her likeness and falls back, wildly pawing at the door’s handle. When she bursts through the threshold, she stumbles out, wild and erratic.

“P-please—h-eeelp.” She’s shaking like a wet dog, hand held up to delicately cover her eye.

“You okay?” Sam looks up from the table and then jumps to his feet when he sees the state she’s in, hunched over and covering her face.

But it’s Castiel who’s in front of her first, as if out of nowhere, blocking her view of the rest of the room.

“Let me see.” He’s looking at her with such intensity that she shrinks beneath his gaze, pulling away from him and cowering. “Arella, let me see.”

He reaches forward and grabs hold of her delicate wrist, wrapping his fingers around it and dragging it away from her face. His touch against her skin feels strange. Sensitive. She looks sideway, tries to shield the right side of her visage but he reaches again with his spare hand, takes her chin gently between his thumb and first finger and turns it back toward him, angles it up so she can’t look away.

She timidly peers up, watches his vivid blue eyes search over her own, flit back and forth between her eyes. The muscles in his jaw flare, his glower intense. The entire interaction feels incredibly unfamiliar. He feels so alien.

And yet, at the same time, it doesn’t.

“You’re fine.” He states after a moment. He’s so close she feels his breath fan over her. “Your eyes are fine.” He releases her and she slumps backwards, recoiling away.

“Cass, is she—” She hears Sam in the background, no doubt worried, but pays him no mind. She instead lunges toward the television set, using its screen as a black mirror. But when she sees her reflection, it’s normal. Both whites of her eyes shine back at her.

“I’m fine.” She mumbles, mimics, feeling a little embarrassed. She supposes it would be fitting if she started seeing things that weren’t there, on top of everything else that’s happened. “I just…I thought for a moment…n-never mind.”

She feels ashamed by the way she had sprung out of the bathroom in such a panic, only for nothing to have happened. But her shame is intermingled with a weird aching sensation that Castiel had sparked in his tender handling of her, and the way he had looked at her, stoic yet concerned, worried yet not.

It was mystifying.

After a moment, Arella realises the room is down a person.

“Where is Dean?” She questions, and Castiel looks around the room, too, as if only just noticing his friend is missing.

Odd.

“He went to get food.” Sam explains and, once he sees she’s okay, sits back down at the table. “Hey, come look at this a second.”

Obediently and still somewhat ashamed, she does as he requests and potters barefoot past Castiel over to the table, sitting down in the chair opposite him. He’s still working over the map of LA and Dean’s scribbles, adding his own by the dim candlelight.

“What’s the best way to get into the abbey?” He asks as he glances up at her from the map.

“The front gates are usually latched,” She folds her hands neatly into her lap as she recalls her home from memory. “But you can scale the walls and access the main quarters directly.”

Sam nods. “Is there a back way in?”

“Yes, through the kitchens off to the left there is a small door. But it’s always locked.”

“We can pick it.” He looks back down, jotting a quick succession of words. Arella observes him, watching curiously as he works. He’s very engrossed and his dedication piques her interest.

“D-do you do this often, Sam?”

“What?” He looks back up with a small smile. “Break into convents?”

She grins, beside herself. “Into buildings in general.”

“Sometimes. When it’s necessary.”

She likes talking to him. Open and free, without anything to hide. She likes Sam Winchester in general. He’s honest – more honest than she’s found his friend to be. She watches him as he continues to jot down scribbles and plans across the map, stopping to pick at a splotch of candle wax.

“Your line of work is awfully fascinating.”

He looks up again, lips quirking into a boyish smile. “Yeah, well, it’s also very dangerous.”

She leans forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table and returning his smile. “I bet it is.”

_A lock of hair falls across his eye, obscuring it. Her fingers itch to smooth it back from his face, to push the table aside and crawl into his lap. She’d no doubt fit, with ample room to spare. If she asked nicely, she wonders if he’d let her indulge in her corrupt fantasies, or if he’d reject them. Perhaps then she would take him by force._

Castiel’s cough makes her thoughts scatter, clearing the haze from her mind. She looks over and finds him staring directly at her, his face drawn tight and his eyes narrowed. She’d forgotten he was even there. The way he regards her makes it seem as though he can read her mind, can see what she’s thinking.

“Hello? Arella?” Sam’s voice is hesitant as he watches her with raised brows.

She looks back, blinking in confusion. “Sorry, I-I drifted off for a second.”

“If you need to, you can go rest.” Sam’s looking her over with a penetrating stare, his voice laced with careful concern. She folds under his gaze and nods, standing from the table and returning to the bed she had slept on, purposefully avoiding Castiel’s eyes.

\---

It’s a bible. She’s found a bible while fishing through the old side table drawers, looking for something to entertain her mind. She utters a quick prayer of thanks before she cracks it open, eager for some reading material. But her heart sinks when she finds the inside is hollowed out, the cavity filled with a small silver hip flask.

“Really?” She mutters to herself in disbelief, closing it again and tossing the book on the bed. Such sacrilege.

When it rained, it poured. Which was exactly what it was doing outside when the tell-tail sound of an engine purr outside denoted Dean’s return

“Alright guys.” Dean pushes the motel door open with his foot, balancing a wet paper bag in each arm. A small flood of water follows him in. “I have stale hotdogs and bubblegum slurpees. Who wants what?”

“Tell me you didn’t just get junk.” Sam grimaces as he watches his brother struggling through the door, well beaten by the rain.

“Calm down, Sammy.” Dean drops the disintegrating bags on top of the cluttered table, giving his little brother a toothy grin as he rummages in one of them. “I bought you some delicious nutritious cheesy snacks. They contain all the goodness of the colour orange.”

“Dean!” Sam grabs at the box his brother proudly exhibits, muttering to himself under his breath. “This stuff’s loaded with garbage.”

“Eat up or starve, Sammy.” Dean simpers, placing a rather unappetising half-wrapped hotdog in front of him. The end has already clearly been nibbled on, and Sam throws his brother a murderous frown.

“Seriously? You’ve already started eating this one, you dick!”

Arella stands from the bed, a small smile on her face at their antics. It’s genuine. While the two boys break away to squabble, she takes a moment to peek into the bags, her stomach loudly announcing her hunger to the whole room. “You only bought three, Dean?” She asks, counting the hotdogs as she withdraws them from the wet bag and places them on the table, least they collapse into soggy mush.

“Right.”

“Did you miscount?” She offers him a half smile, eyebrows raised. “There’s four of us.”

“Oh.” Dean glances up at with a sheepish grin to where Castiel has planted himself in Arella’s former chair by the window. “Eh, I figured Cass wouldn’t be eating.”

“What?” Arella turns to look at Castiel in confusion. “Why?”

“Uh, gotta’ work on that diet and all, right Cass?” Dean chuckles, but it’s stiff and unconvincing.

“I’m not hungry.” Castiel informs them, staring out the curtains.

She furrows her brows, more confused than ever. “But you haven’t eaten all day.”

“I don’t eat much.”

She takes a moment to inspect him once again. He wasn’t exactly fragile looking. She turns back to Dean with a perplexed frown, and he responds with a light smile.

“Cass once went on a burger bender and the aftermath still haunts him to this day.” Although he was speaking to her, he made sure his voice carried over to where Castiel could hear it.

She looks back over to the window and sure enough he’s staring straight at Dean, a vacant expression on his face.

“That…was regrettable.” He states, slowly taking time to find the right words as he recalls a certain memory.

“You have food intolerances?” She questions him, picking up one of the hotdogs and taking a bite. It isn’t the nicest or healthiest food, but it elates her all the same. The cold Chinese leftovers were becoming rather unappetising.

“Sort of.”

Dean chuckles, biting into his own hotdog and then riffling through the other paper bag. “Hell, I’d have food intolerances too if I crammed that many cheeseburgers down my gullet.”

Sam snorts into his box of cheesy snacks. “Dean, you practically do.”

Dean gives him a playfully criticizing look, pulling out a cardboard tray of fluorescent blue frozen drinks. “No bubblegum slurpees for you, then.” The brothers once again dive back into a round of sibling discourse, not that Arella could mind. What Castiel said earlier was right – it was nice when brothers could get along.

She’s so hungry and enrapt with her food that she doesn’t even look up again until she hears Dean rummaging in the second bag once more.

“Heads up,” He says, pulling out a small Gillette carton and chucking it across the room. “The best a man can get. Dunno about _Anglicans_ though.”

“Thank you, Dean.” Castiel mutters and picks up the box after it bounces off his shoulder, catches Arella’s startled gaze and then looks back toward the window.


End file.
